1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system including an interface that provides information or service upon receipt of an input from a user, and specifically relates to a home use robot, an information terminal, a home electric appliance, and the like working through interaction with a user.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Between a user and an appliance preconditioned to be used by the user, an interface is necessary. As one kind of interfaces, an adaptive interface is offered which adjusts information or service to be provided according to a history of interaction between the user and the appliance. The adaptive interface enables the appliance to adapt according to difference or personality of the user, thereby realizing a user-friendly interface.
Conventional adaptive interfaces include an interface that stands for operation through observation of user's operation sequence, an interface that composes a human-friendly interface with pseudo feeling presented to the user, an interface adapted according to biometric information, and the like. In a broad sense, a function of information recommendation can be an adaptive interface in view of presenting information suitable for each user.
In order to provide user-friendly interfaces, such adaptive interfaces are so composed to (1) receive user's specific state or an input from a user, (2) judge the user's state, and (3) adjust service or an interface.
Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2 show prior art examples relating to improvement on the above adaptive interface.
For example, Patent Document 1 proposes a method for adjusting a state adapting to the user in an example of a machine translation system. In machine translation, dictionaries of translation examples, vocabularies, and the like necessary for translation vary depending on a genre of an input text (news story, manual, or the like), and therefore, the genres thereof are changed adaptively. However, the genre change is not necessarily done successfully. Under the circumstances, candidates of a genre to be exchanged are proposed to the user for increasing accuracy of genre specification. This aims at providing a countermeasure in case of unsmooth adaptation in an adaptive interface.
Referring to Patent Document 2, interface layout or the like is determined on the bases of a model called a pseudo feeling in an example of a GUI interface of a WEB browser. Specifically, an interface element is used as one creating a pseudo feeling and an expression of the feeling is presented as interface layout. This interface utilizes a characteristic of human's pseudo feeling variation, and therefore, it can be said that adaptation of a user interface suitably for human's feeling is realized.
Further, there are Non-patent Documents 1, 2, and 3 showing noteworthy knowledge relating to an interface between a human and a machine.
Non-patent Document 1 reports that: in the case where the user plays a game (last and first) with a human or a computer through a network, duration of user's interest and user's reaction differed between when a human is specified as the adversary and when the computer is specified as the adversary even when the user's adversary is fixed to the same computer program.
Non-patent Document 2 obtained the result that: after a user carried out a task of transmitting a message to a robot, a computer screen, and a human, the user confessed in an interview that he/she felt difference in speech ease.
Further, Non-patent Document 3 reports that: in communication between humans, not only verbal information through language but also non-verbal information such as peripheral language of speech, a nod, a blink, expression, body gesture, hand gesture, and the like causes generally-called entrainment where a talker and a hearer are drawn in mutually, thereby attaining smooth communication. Further, there is indication that physiological entrainment such as entrainment of variation in hart beat interval, which relates intimately to affection variation, and entrainment of breath, plays an important role.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Publication No. 9-81350A
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Publication No. 2000-330676A
Patent Document 3: Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Publication No. 2003-150194A
Non-patent Document 1: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Takao Matsui, Kazuo Seki, Satoshi Umeda, and Yuichiro Anzai, “Computation system and interaction: Consideration relating to factor for increasing amenity, Japanese Cognitive Science Society, Cognitive Science, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 107-120, published by KYORITSU SHUPPAN CO., LTD., May, 1994
Non-patent Document 2: Etsuko Harada, Agency in speech interface and effects of social context: Study through message sending experiment, Japanese Cognitive Science Society, 19th Conference, pp. 14-15, June, 2002
Non-patent Document 3: Tomio Watanabe, Entrainment and physicality in physical communication: Through development of relating physical communication system, E-COSMIC, Baby Science, Vol. 2, pp. 4-12, 2002